The
Startup
Portfolio.

Context

What does an incubator do?

An incubator is a protected space for a while. You arrive as a founder with an idea — and get the conditions in which it can become a validated business model: coaching, workspace, a network and, above all, time to experiment before the market judges. That’s exactly what sets incubation apart from accelerators and venture capital: what counts here isn’t a quick return, but a viable company.

The Startup Incubator Berlin is the founders’ center of HWR Berlin — its mission is education and transfer, not equity. That’s why it supports teams without taking shares: 0% equity — what you build is yours. The numbers you’re about to see are the result of that logic: teams that could find out, without pressure, whether their idea holds.

Background

15 years, one mission

What is now called a founders’ center started small — 15 years ago, with a handful of teams and a lot of persuasion. It has grown into an institution: 300 startups, supported from the first sketch to a viable company. The curve below shows why continuity matters more than any single lighthouse: one cohort of six teams makes no headlines — twelve cohorts in a row change a university.

New teams arrive every year, and every year new know-how stays in the house: methods that prove themselves get passed on — what doesn’t work gets dropped. It’s this repetition, not one spectacular success story, that makes a founders’ center resilient. So read the curve not as a growth story, but as evidence of staying power.

Programs

6 programs, many entry points

Being ready to start isn’t a switch, it’s a path — and at every point you need something different. Startup Now is the entry before you launch: free coaching, a workspace and workshops for teams still sharpening their idea. The Berlin Startup Scholarship then takes the pressure off — €2,500 per person per month, for six months, extendable up to twelve. BSS Women was a dedicated track of the same scholarship for women founders. And the EXIST Startup Grant brings federal funding to the university — for technology- and knowledge-based ventures, up to twelve months, supported by an academic mentor.

All four share one method: build, measure, learn — the lean-startup loop that turns assumptions into solid insight.

Different stages of maturity need different formats — the method stays the same.

Portfolio logic

Breadth, not a bet

A thematic fund bets on one sector and hopes the bet pays off. A university incubator works the other way around: it takes the ideas that students, alumni and researchers actually bring — and those come from every direction. That’s why below you’ll find 15 sectors in a portfolio of 300 teams. This breadth is no accident, it’s by design: supporting across sectors reflects what a university really moves — instead of filtering for whatever is currently in fashion.

Still, focal points emerge: health and food & nutrition lead with 21 teams each, education follows with 15 — together almost half the portfolio. So read the chip wall as a map, not a ranking: each sector stands for problems teams have worked on here.

Openness

Transparency as a principle

Many portfolios show only the showcase cases. Here you see them all: every one of the 300 teams from twelve cohorts, from the first ones to the latest additions. That’s intentional — a founders’ center at a public university owes an account of what came out of its support, not just the highlights. And for you, the full list is more honest than any polished success rate: it shows what starting up really looks like.

Dive into the table: filter by cohort, program or sector, search the full text for keywords and click through to the team profiles. You might find a startup working on exactly your problem — or one whose path resembles yours.